Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing system, an image pickup apparatus, a method of controlling the image pickup apparatus, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
With improvement of the computational performance of network cameras and the image quality of images picked up by the network cameras, there have been proposed not only an application for video recording for monitoring, but also various other applications including one for functional cooperation with an information processing apparatus. Further, a multifunction peripheral as an example of the information processing apparatus has come to have more and more complicated functions, and even a function that cannot be realized by a single multifunction peripheral is now demanded so as to improve office productivity, for example.
To cope with this situation, there has been proposed to cause a network camera to cooperate with a multifunction peripheral to thereby improve the functionality of the multifunction peripheral.
For example, a multifunction peripheral has a function for shifting to a power saving mode when it is not in use so as to reduce power consumption. In the power saving mode, it is preferable to de-energize components including sensors so as to minimize power consumption, but in a case where a sensor for detecting a user is de-energized, the multifunction peripheral cannot detect an approach of the user.
For this reason, de-energization of the sensor for detecting a user has a problem that the user cannot use the multifunction peripheral at any time the user desires to use it.
To solve this problem, there has been proposed a functional cooperation in which upon detection of a user's approach, a network camera transmits a wakeup packet to a multifunction peripheral which cooperates with the network camera so as to cancel the power saving mode of the multifunction peripheral.
In order to achieve the functional cooperation, it is required to configure how the network camera monitors which multifunction peripheral and how the network camera makes notification to the multifunction peripheral. This configuration is complicated and troublesome because a network camera is not provided with a user interface device, such as a liquid crystal panel and a keyboard.
As a technique for automating the above-mentioned configuration, there has been proposed one in which a plurality of monitoring cameras are each provided with a function of detecting features of a monitoring target, such as the size, motion, etc. of the same, then calculating priorities of monitoring from the features, and sending the result of the calculation to a controller connected to a network, and the controller gives a monitoring priority right to one of the monitoring cameras based on the received priorities to thereby monitor a video signal from the monitoring camera to which the monitoring priority right is given (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-333159).
To realize return of the multifunction peripheral from the power saving mode by functional cooperation, each network camera is required to store settings of a detection frame within a picked-up image so as to determine that a user's approach has been sensed.
The settings of a detection frame can be determined by extracting feature points from the shape of the multifunction peripheral and performing object recognition processing on the feature points.
However, the positional relationship between a multifunction peripheral and a network camera differs depending on the situation of installation of the apparatuses, and hence it is required to change the settings depending on the positional relationship, which is very troublesome.
Further, even when the settings are configured according to the installation situation, the settings can be made invalid e.g. due to layout change or location of an obstacle, and a check operation for checking a cause of the invalid condition is also troublesome.